which laptop?

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foxy

New Member
Jul 4, 2002
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I might be buying a laptop soon and need some help choosing one. I'd rather get a laptop from PCWORLD so if anything goes wrong I can take it to a shop (not as easy as repairing PCs!) Although other advice would be good?

what I want:

well it will mainly be for work (RAM and CPU hungry stuff) so main thing is I want a fast one with plenty of RAM.

I don't want to pay the extra £1000 for the smaller/lighter ones, so around £1200 is my budget which seems to buy a fast and reasonably sleek one.

As for makes does anyone have any experience with build quality/reliability of different brands?

I've seen 3 possible choices so far, I'll put details below...

Sony FR315B....looks good and good price but would need to wait for it to be in stock again, if it ever is and I'd want a memory upgrade too, and performance could be better in general.

ADVENT 7038...specs look amazing for this one and price is good too but I've never heard of ADVENT and would be concerned about reliability/build quality.

TOSHIBA A30-714...this one is basically similar to the ADVENT one but with a brand I've heard of....but then I dont know if toshiba laptops are good so....

anyway thats the sort of things I'm looking at....any comments would be greatly appreciated :D

ADVENT 7038 MOBILE AMD ATHLON 2500+ PROCESSOR LAPTOP
AMD Mobile Athlon XP 2500+ Processor
£1,099.99
Price inc VAT
was £1,199.99
save £100
512 Mb RAM Memory
60 Gb Hard Drive
Recordable DVD & CD ReWriter Drive
15.4" TFT Screen
128Mb ATI IGP 320M Graphics
Microsoft XP Home
Microsoft Works 7.0
3 x USB Connections
1 Year FREE Warranty


TOSHIBA A30-714
TOSHIBA INTEL PENTIUM 4 3.0GHz PROCESSOR LAPTOP
£1,199.99
Price inc VAT
Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz Mobile Processor
512 Mb RAM Memory
40 Gb Hard Drive
DVD Rom & CD ReWriter Drive
15" TFT Screen
64Mb Intel 852GME Graphics
Microsoft Windows XP Home & Worksuite
2 x USB Connections
1 x Firewire Connection
1 Year FREE Warranty

SONY
FR315B
INTEL CELERON 2.6GHz PROCESSOR LAPTOP
£844.82
Web Exclusive
In-store Price £998.98
Intel Celeron 2.6GHz Processor
256 Mb RAM Memory
40 Gb Hard Drive
15.0" TFT Screen
DVD Rom & CD ReWriter Drive
128Mb ATi Radeon IGP 345M Graphics
Microsoft XP Home
3 x USB Connections
1 x Firewire Connection
1 Year FREE Warranty
 
Personally, I would go for an HP nx9005, and get it from somewhere other than PC World - they usually come with 3 years RTB warranty, so if it has real problems, HP will fix it. Insight have been pretty good for supply of laptops (as long as they are in stock).

I havent had much experience with the current Toshiba's, but I always found older ones to be of bad build quality. We used to have an Advent, and it was basically OK till *just* out of its 1 year warranty, then the battery stopped charging, then a couple of months later, the power didnt work at all...

Sony Viao's I have always like the look of, never actually known anyone that had one - dont know the particular one you mention to comment.

As I say - the HP nx9005 I like, for a £1200 budget (£1116 + delivery) , you can get one of the higher end ones :
HP Compaq Business Notebook nx9005 - Athlon XP-M 2600+ / 2 GHz - RAM 512 MB - HD 60 GB - CD-RW / DVD-ROM combo - Mdm - LAN EN, Fast EN, 802.11b, 802.11g - Win XP Pro - 15" TFT
http://uk.insight.com/apps/productpresentation/index.php?product_id=HPYA03NEO

For a lesser budget (£751 + Delivery) you can get
HP Compaq Business Notebook nx9005 - Athlon XP-M 2400+ / 1.8 GHz - RAM 256 MB - HD 30 GB - CD-RW / DVD-ROM combo - Mdm - LAN EN, Fast EN - Win XP Home - 14.1" TFT
http://uk.insight.com/apps/productpresentation/index.php?product_id=HPYA03MHV

Their abbreviations - I cba typing them out full.

Hmmmmmmm, just noticed 1 year warranty, I am sure they used to have longer than that ... but hey - its as long as PC World give you (though PC World also sell these models), and there is at least 1 place in Glasgow that repairs laptops.
 
Toshiba Sucks Shit, nuff said - they used to produce good laptops, but the build quality of recent models has been apalling.

Advent is a PC World only rebrand of the Gericom Laptops - they are not, however supported by anyone other than Dixons Group. We had an Advent Laptop, and it was nothing but trouble - battery failed - £104 for a replacement, which failed again 3 months later.. laptop itself died about 3 months after that, conveniently outside the 1 year warranty.

Sony... well, sony produce some sexy kit, but they suffer very badly from battery fade, and whilst the laptop has a 1 year warranty, the *battery* only has a 3 month warranty - and typical lifespan of less than 9 months. That's an (up to) £200 replacement part.

HP Laptops (basically, compaq laptops rebranded after the merger) are pretty solid, and well featured. I have an nx9005 (same as mughi, duh) and it's pretty sweet. Be aware, however, the older models have a fairly low powered ATi Graphics device that isn't up to playing UT, for instance.

IBM Thinkpads (especially the Centrino ones) are pretty damn sweet - they cost a little more, bt are easily the best laptops available.

As for buying from PC World... forget it. Seriously - the idea that you can take it back to the shop is appealing, but you will *not* get any better service than from (for instance) Misco or Simply Computers. Dixons Retail Group have a horrific Customer service record, and plenty of hate sites (here is one : http://www.dixonscustomers.com/ )

PC World employs muppets, and the managers are heavily targeted to reduce returns. The standard recourse for *any* laptop problem is return to manufacturer, with something like a 4-6 week turnaround. (apart from Advent, which they fix at a central facility).

Disclaimer #1 : The statements here about PC World are from my own experience and that of my friends and colleagues. information about brands and equipment is my own personal opinion, nothing more.
 
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well I must admit the HP one does look pretty good. I'm only concerned about reliability cos most people i know who have laptops talk of em fucking up esp at around the end of warranty time. Jokos laptop (Sharp) had a HD failure after a year, although sharp replaced it pretty damn fast so fair enuff. Given that I'm getting it do do my PhD work on I really can't be arsed with any fuckups like that after such short times. (although I've bought an external HD to backup so I'll be safe hopefully)

ok that narrows it down to the HP ones u say and a couple of sony ones I've seen of pretty similar spec. I think the HP one looks......oh hang on...

Read Speed 24x (CD) / 8x (DVD)
Write Speed 24x
CD / DVD Rewrite Speed 10x

thats faster than the sony ones and there's nothin more buggin than a slow CD drive!

ok say I was to get the HP one, where is a good place to get it? any experience of HP customer service? as for repair places I'm doing the phd in aberdeen so I guess I could ask MC if there are any decent repair places.

anything else u can tell me about the nx9005? Thanks for the tip anyway! I'd missed those laptops in my searching.
 
Well, we have 8 HP Laptops in the company, of which 3 are fairly high end nx9005s. So far (fingers crossed) we have not had any failures - one of them looked like it was getting battery problems, but leaving it on charge for 8 hours did the trick. From a maintenance point of view, they are easy to get into, and use standard parts: SODIMMS for memory, standard 2.5" Hard Drive etc, all accessible from screw panels without tearing the case apart etc.

We have had to deal with HP's customer care guys for a couple of our customers though, and they are second to none - another reason for recommending them, tbh. They tend to do stuff like send a courier to collect faulty kit, and courier back a replacement next day, or within a couple of days for a repair. HP and IBM are the good guys in customer care in my opinion.

THe DVD/CDRW combo drive in the HPs is brilliant - as well as being fast (I have the 16x one) I haven't had a dodgy burned disc yet, and the drive seems pretty happy to use all sorts of media: it works just as well with the crappy sspindles of CDRs as with brand name stuff.

As Mughi says, Insight are good - sharp pricing and good availability we got ours from them. another good option is the Misco/Global Group - although they recently decided to ship all 50 jobs out of Greenock to London. I tend to not use companies that do that, but in the past we have found them to be again very reliable and friendly to deal with.

INsight's Laptops Section

Personally, I'd go for this one - the screen is to die for - razor sharp, vibrant colour..

One thing (and this is seriously important) get yourself a Targus rucksack. I don't know if you are a rucksack kinda guy (I never stopped using one after Uni, so it's no big deal for me) but in this case, it's absolutely needed. Most of the dead laptops I have seen from mates and customers come down to people carrying them in crappy bags (even a record bag in one case) A good targus laptop rucksack has a strong padded pouch inside it to hold the laptop, and plenty space for "bits" - cables, PSU, and so on. This is worth buying in person, so you can check it out.. We got ours from Office World in finnieston (beside the PC World)


I.

ps: Thanks ;)
 
thanks very much m8s, ur advice seems excellent and I'm tempted to take it esp. given ur background with computers etc. That one u mention winty looks like it has the best range of features/performance out of any I've seen at that price and from what u say about build quality and customer care, makes it a very tempting choice! Thx for the tip about bag too, I've found that Office World handy in the past!

thx again for the top class advice everyone :D UTA peeps r da bomb!


oh and incase u think I'm gonna disappear from UTA when I go to do my PhD..........


.......wrong! I'm simply gonna reappear with a T3 connection!! loooool I love physics project rooms! :sniper: :yipee:
 
Not going to add anything that hasn't really been said:

Toshiba suck.
PC World is not for anyone who even knows how to turn a PC on.
Compaq/HP laptops are the bomb
Dell make nice latitudes and the outlet store is nice place to look.

Although it's a shame you didn't say this 2 weeks ago. My work was taking part in the Compaq Employee Purschase Scheme. Brand new laptops and stuff for £300-£400 off the RRP. All because some company would buy it, open the box, realise it's the wrong thing and return it - but Compaq can't sell it full price coz it's 2nd hand, so they do that scheme. But like I said, finished a fortnight ago. Should be another one in the summer if ya can wait :p
 
I have a Dell. It's a touch on the chunky side, unlike the Sony stuff which looks the business. But the Dell performs real good and the display is top quality. Better than I've seen on any other laptop. And the battery life is good too. Easy enough to watch a long movie. Dell always seem to have a sale on, so it's worth checking out the model you want with the bolt on goodies like DVD writer and extra RAM.
 
lol ok I'm starting to see similar trends in the replys, thx again for the help m8s :)
 
I've got a Sony Vaio (P4 M 1.8, 265MB Ram, 16.1" TFT, Radeon Mobile something, 40GB HD, DVD ROM and 24X CDRW)

The performance really is pants compared to a desktop machine, and I got this as a desktop replacement. Had it for over 12 months now. The only thing wrong with it is that WinXP on it is all screwed up, and the amount of shite that was installed by default ontop of WinXP really slows it down to a crawl.

Using it a Richs LAN to play games was pretty useless, the HD's are really slow reading/writting. For gaming and desktop replacement use I had to nick Richs external firewire HD and install the games and heavy stuff there. I don't think laptops they are worthwhile unless you actually need to work while being mobile (don't confuse this with travelling with a PC and setting it up for fun/presentation etc) These days, for a lot less £ and more performance you can get Shuttles/MiniQ's + TFT which. Looking back, a shuttle would have been much better for me, personally, than this Vaio ever will be.

PC World is possibly the worst place you can buy it from, unless you need credit.
 
I know what u mean martz m8 and I actually have a flat screen/shuttle in the house here - it's well smart. Except the variable speed fan drives me nuts wuuuuurrrrr WHIRRRRRR WHIIIIIIIIIIRRR weeeer wuuuuuuuuuuur......fak affff!!

I'll be moving around and working abroad sometimes though so a laptop really would be best for me ;)
 
Martz said:
PC World is possibly the worst place you can buy it from, unless you need credit.
Click to expand...

True. Except I bought a 160 GB HD for £77 and Prince of Persia 2 (for my nephew I should point out ) inc of gamepad for 15 or 20 quid (I forget which). Very occassionally they have bargains. Mostly they suck. If yer ever bored, try asking for tekky advice. My 11 year old daughter knows more.
 
Twonko said:
True. Except I bought a 160 GB HD for £77 and Prince of Persia 2 (for my nephew I should point out ) inc of gamepad for 15 or 20 quid (I forget which). Very occassionally they have bargains. Mostly they suck. If yer ever bored, try asking for tekky advice. My 11 year old daughter knows more.
Click to expand...
yeah every-now-and-again they have some bargains in, I bought a cheapo computer chair from PC World which has put up with quite a few years of abuse from my fat ass.
 
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